Flat roofing in Winterborne Kingston

Extensions and garden rooms. Where the deck is sound we take it back to boards and lay EPDM rubber, which goes down as a single sheet with bonded seams, or GRP fibreglass where there are kerbs, a step in the level or an awkward corner, since it is laid wet and forms the upstands and edge trim in one piece. Single ply, welded at the laps, is the answer where the area is large.

Garages, stores and converted outbuildings. Usually three layer built up felt beneath a mineral cap sheet, often original and now brittle. A modern torch on system on a dry deck is a good answer on a plain span. A converted outbuilding in Winterborne Kingston is the one to look at carefully, because a building that used to be cold and draughty is now heated, and a covering that coped before may be sitting over a build up that cannot handle the moisture.

The deck and the build up. Plywood, OSB or chipboard on joists, with firrings creating the falls. Wet chipboard swells, loses its grip and comes off. Build it warm and the PIR sits on top of the boards over a vapour control layer, so nothing structural is ever cold enough to reach the dew point. Build it cold and the insulation drops between the joists with a ventilated gap above, and the moment that gap is blocked you get condensation and interstitial damp spoiling the decking with no rain involved. BS 6229 covers both, and tapered insulation is how a fall gets corrected where the joists cannot be raised.

Where the water goes. This is the part that gets skipped. A flat roof drains to one or two points, so everything arrives at the rainwater outlet, the hopper below it, the gutter and the downpipe. Block one and you have ponding and standing water sitting over every lap and seam within a day. We check the outlet is the right size, that it is not choked, and that the downpipe below it is actually discharging somewhere, not into a gully that has silted up.

Junctions, openings and the usual repairs. Against brickwork the flashing is chased in and dressed down in lead, never smeared along the joint with mastic, and a parapet has its coping and cavity tray looked at. At the perimeter, the edge trim, the drip and the apron. A rooflight, a lantern or a Velux sits on a formed kerb, as does any soil pipe or vent pipe. Day to day the repairs are blisters and bubbles, a split or crack, and a lifted or failed seam.

A flat roof is not priced by the square metre. The area is easy to measure. What the covering sits on is where the money goes.

The deck. Chipboard that has been wet for a few winters swells and goes soft, and ply can delaminate at the edges. A sound deck takes a new covering straight on. A spongy one has to be stripped and re-boarded, and that is the largest single swing in any flat roof price.

Where the water goes. Parts of Winterborne Kingston lie in the higher flood risk zones, the North Winterbourne runs close by, and surface water is rated a high risk, all of which you can look up on the government flood risk service. A flat roof that ponds, or drains into a gully that backs up in a storm, needs its falls corrected with firrings and its outlet rethought, not just a fresh membrane.

Upstands, trims and access. Each upstand against a wall, each outlet and each run of edge trim is priced on its own, because that is where flat roofs leak. A tower for a garage is a small line. A scaffold round a two storey back wall is a bigger one, and the work at height rules explain why it stands for as long as the deck is open.

Put these to any other quote. Which membrane system, and how many layers? Is the deck being replaced or overlaid? Are the falls being corrected, and is the skip included?

Thomas Hannen owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales under company number 15471719, and he is the one who climbs up, checks your deck and writes the price. Before you book a visit in Winterborne Kingston, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

We work from 80a Wolverton Road, Boscombe, about 16.2 miles from Winterborne Kingston, and cover the village, Winterborne Whitechurch, Bere Regis and the DT11 addresses along the valley. Dorset Council is the planning authority and takes the building control notice for a flat roof renewal. A verified Checkatrade customer marked us 10 out of 10. There is no charge for the visit, and none for the written quote with every line itemised.

Most repairs in Winterborne Kingston need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.